


Heal and Rebuild

by Yeah_Toast



Series: Clearing out the Hard-drive: Finishing Old Works [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Assassin Number Five | The Boy, Background Klaus/Dave, M/M, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Vietnam War, briefcases
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26402221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_Toast/pseuds/Yeah_Toast
Summary: As an assassin Five never thought much about who he killed, now he wishes things were different. In fact, he ensures they are.
Series: Clearing out the Hard-drive: Finishing Old Works [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280687
Comments: 2
Kudos: 127





	Heal and Rebuild

The first time he hesitates on the job, it’s in Vietnam. He’s worked for the Commision for roughly four years, and he knows that the time to part ways is coming. His equations are nearly finished, and he thinks that by his next mission he should be done with them. Really, with that in mind, it's almost silly that Five hesitates, that he puts himself at risk of being noticed for something as silly as this.

It’s just that of his two targets, one is named Klaus. 

It's a coincidence of course, his brother isn’t even born yet, let alone old enough to fight in the war, and even if he were Five isn’t sure he could with what must be a large number of ghosts around the area. Sighing heavily, Five steadies his rifle against his shoulder and settles in to wait. He only has the photo of one target, a Dave Katz, but he’s been told that the two are nearly always together, and that if he sees Dave leaving camp alone with another man, particularly if they engage in romantic activity, to fire at them both as the probability that its his target is extremely high.

He’s been staking out the jungle outside of the soldiers camp for three days when he finally watches Dave sneak out. He’s followed by another man, this one wearing his helmet so low on his face that Five can’t see anything other than a faint smile and a shadow above it though he can hear the man’s loud boisterous laugh at something Dave said. Still, as Dave cups the man’s face tenderly, whispering a name that Five can’t quite hear, he knows him to be Klaus, and Five takes his shot.

He fires at Dave first, then, trusting his shot, he shoots Klaus down before the man can even look to see where the shot came from.

He never checks his work and sees the second target’s face.

When he returns to the Commission, the Handler beams and congratulates him on a job well done, on changing the future for the better. She tells him that now that he has completed his mission she can send a retrieval team in. He never asks what they’re retrieving, it doesn’t matter to Five; it never has, so he shrugs out from under hand with a solemn nod and asks about his next mission.

When they send him to kill JFK, Five forgets all about his jaunt to Vietnam. 

As he steps through the blue portal of his powers, Five bites his tongue as a scream threatens to escape. Something doesn’t feel right, he’s never felt like this before, never felt his own power gnawing at him from the inside, pulling and scratching at his skin.

He doesn’t scream, even when a fire extinguisher flies past him and his skin ripples as it passes. Instead, he merely steps out into the open, ready to change the world.

Then Klaus calls him little Number Five, and he realizes that nothing is as simple as it once seemed. 

HIs new body is a severe handicap, even if he’s reluctant to admit it. His ability to fight hand to hand has no doubt worsened, as he is both unaware of and unfamiliar with the limits of his youthful body. He hasn’t had to be in roughly forty five years. For a while, he allows this to distract him, and he mourns his loss over a hot cup of coffee at Griddy’s. His freedom is impinged in a way it hasn’t since he was under Reginald’s thumb and Five has to stop himself from hissing as the waitress looks to the other man in the dinner before taking his order. Even the commission had never tried to control his coffee intake.

Then the Commission's agents arrive and Five forgets personal freedoms in favor of killing them all. He should never have allowed himself to focus on what he had lost, he should have focused on what he still has to lose. Forgetting about the tracker was a rookie mistake, and he won’t be making anymore of those, not now.

He focuses on the mission. No matter how he has to achieve it.

Bringing Klaus to Meritech to pose as his father was not part of the plan, in fact Five isn’t entirely sure how it worked. Klaus is a great many things, but Five doubts the man could raise someone like him, or even act like someone who would. Still, he gets results even if the results aren’t what he wants to hear.

As they leave the building, Klaus laughs, loud and clear, and Five can’t shake the feeling that the sound is familiar, more so than the laugh of someone he hasn’t seen in forty-five years should be. 

He leaves his brother sitting and reminiscing on osso buco, and he thinks nothing of it.

Delores is the one to offer him comfort in the face of his failures, and Five can’t help but feel a little bitter about that. Delores has been by his side, has been comforting him for so long now, he wishes that he had done his job correctly, that he could finally offer her some.

“I’ll do it,” Five promises, “I swear, I’ll fix everything.”

Then go, she tells him. Change the world, Five.

“I will.”

But when he stands up the alcohol courses through his body, young, too young and unaccustomed, and he sways before falling

“I will, just not yet.”

When Five is finally able and willing to move again, hours later, he tidies himself up and jumps to the kitchen. He isn’t expecting anyone to be there, in fact his plan is to grab a quick meal before returning to Meritech and persevering, but when he arrives Numbers One through Three are all seated at a table looking troubled.

“You,” Diego hisses, staggering to his feet. There’s a knife in his hand, and Five eyes it as Diego thrust a finger from his other hand at his chest. “This is your fault, you did this.”

“What did I do now?”

Diego growls, throwing himself forwards. Five easily side steps him, blocking the knife and twisting Diego’s arm up so that it’s pointed at his own throat. 

“I don’t like to be attacked,” Five tells him before dropping his hold and stepping back. His eyes track Diego’s movement, the way he readies himself for another leap by balancing on the balls of his feet. 

Then Luthor’s hand drops onto Diego’s shoulder and Allison’s voice cuts through the air. “Enough, this won’t fix anything.”

“She’s dead because of you,” Diego spits, and then suddenly he’s gone, storming out of the room.

Five watches him leave, mind running a hundred miles a minute. “Who is he talking about?”

“His friend,” Allison sighs. He notices her eyes are red rimmed. “She died looking for Klaus.”

“Klaus?” 

“We think… No, we know, those people who came here looking for him, they took him. Detective Patch went looking for him, and they killed her.”

“Did he escape?”

Luthor shakes his head. “No one has heard from him since he was taken, he could still be with them, or he could be free and hiding.”

“Or dead.” Allison’s voice is horribly empty of emotion. “He could be dead.”

Five turns from them both, and begins to make himself a sandwich. “They don’t still have him, otherwise they would have found a way to inform me and make a deal. And I doubt they killed him. They know that if they did I would be… angry. Neither of them is prepared to face me like that.”

“So you think that he escaped?” Allison wonders. “Where would he have gone?”

“I don’t know. Where was Diego’s friend killed?”  
Luther only gets through half of the hotel name before Five is jumping away. He knows that there won’t be much to go on, that Hazel and Cha-Cha will have cleared out a long time ago, but he has to wonder about Klaus. His brother isn’t known for his common sense.

He follows the trail of police to a corpse. Diego’s friend, surrounded by police tape and officers as if any of them have any chance of discovering what really happened. There’s a small crowd gathered on one side of the tape, and Five quickly joins in, trying to blend in as well as a thirteen year old boy can. He elbows his way to the front, and quickly takes in the scene. The hotel room door is cracked, and from what he can see Klaus was definitely held here. If the overturned chair wasn’t enough, the bar of “special” chocolate that he’s seen Klaus imbibe in would be. 

Klaus escaped. That’s what matters for now. He’ll deal with the apocalypse first, then solve the matter of why his brother hasn’t returned yet. After all, knowing Klaus it’s likely that he simply got distracted.

He tries to shake the feeling that Hazel and Cha-Cha would never let Klaus live. He’d have seen their faces. When the Handler offers him a job, and god isn't that deja-vu, he accepts. His family, she promises, will survive, and isn’t that really all he’s ever wanted.

So he returns to that place that exists beyond time and he waits, he watches. Retrieval Team #34 comes back from Vietnam, and Five can’t help the intrigue that crawls up his spine as he realizes how little time has passed here, that Retrieval Team #34 was running the last leg of his mission prior to JFK. There’s no time to investigate, though he hears that they retrieve a misplaced briefcase, as he’s too busy changing things. He orders the deaths of both Hazel and Cha-Cha, steals a briefcase for himself, and returns to his own timeline where he confesses exactly what he’s trying to prevent.

“I’ve taken care of Hazel and Cha-Cha for now, but the best course of action to take would be to kill Harold Jenkins as quickly as possible.”

But then they learn that Vanya has gone off with Harlod Jenkins and Allison after her, and everything begins to go downhill. It doesn’t matter what Five does, he cannot seem to keep up with the apocalypse. 

Then Luther locks Vanya up, and in her escape she brings the mansion down despite the people within. 

When they arrive at The Icarus Theatre, secure in the knowledge that Vanya ends the world, Five cannot feel anything. Ben is dead, unsaveable even for him, Klaus missing, Diego dead in the rubble of the Academy, and now Vanya uncontrolled and dangerous. He’s failed, not just the world but his siblings. 

Commission soldiers appear as he stares down his sister, and as they shoot, Five makes his choice. 

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. He jumps. 

Time traveling without a briefcase is a crapshoot, even now that he’s adjusted his calculations; as such, he’s unsurprised to land sitting next to Delores with a bottle of vodka in his hand rather than back far enough to save Ben. Still, he quickly gathers that it hasn’t been that long since he left Klaus talking about Osso Bucco, particularly given how sober he feels, and Five quickly jumps back to where he’s last seen his brother. 

It makes sense, he knows what causes the apocalypse now, and there are steps he can take to prevent it. Klaus however, he lacks information on. He only knows that he goes missing about this time and if he isn’t careful he’ll still lose siblings this go around. 

He doesn’t find Klaus. He does see Hazel and Cha-Cha’s message for him. As he stares at the smoldering remains of Meritch, and curses Harold Jenkins’ name, he prepares himself for war. They touched his brother, that’s what this is. 

When he jumps to the hotel they’re keeping him in, he arrives in time to watch his brother crawl into a vent, pushing a briefcase in front of him. 

He doesn’t have time to focus on it

He ignores the woman bleeding on the floor, Detective Patch a voice in the back of his mind whispers, in favor of jumping behind Cha-Cha and Hazel. He makes quick work of them this time, taking Cha-Cha out first with a series of quick but brutal stabs to the neck and chest. 

Warned by his partner's death, Hazel puts up a bit more of a fight. He gets in several hits, and even manages to wrench Five’s knife away from him. In the end though, Five has the advantage, jumping out of his bear hold onto his back and snapping his neck. 

Wiping blood from his face, Five approaches the hotel phone and rings 911, quickly asking for an ambulance on account of an injured cop. He doesn’t wait for a response, jumping to the end of the vent he’d watched Klaus crawl into. 

Klaus is gone, and a sinking feeling appears in his stomach. It had only taken him a few minutes to dispatch Hazel and Cha-Cha, and even if Klaus were at full health, unlikely given who he was with, he couldn’t have gotten far. Still, the fact that he’s nowhere to be seen, as well as the briefcase he had been pushing along in front of him, Klaus always had a curious soul, and Five wouldn’t put it past him to open the briefcase, particularly if there was the chance of something valuable residing within. 

Klaus has time traveled and Five doesn’t know where. 

There’s no doubt in his mind that the Commission will send someone to kill him, even if they don’t realize who Klaus is, he’s an error in the timeline. Still, Five has no idea where and when he is, and more time to fix that particular problem. 

He’ll save the world first. Then his brother. 

He kills Harold Jenkins in his sleep and makes it look like heart failure. That morning he gathers all of his siblings, sans Klaus, and stares them down over a cup of coffee. 

“I know you don’t all believe me about the future. That’s fine. This is about something else entirely.”

He pulls their fathers notebook, stolen by Harold and stolen back again by Five, and begins to read aloud. He tells them the truth about Vanya, about how her powers are being suppressed by the anxiety medicine she’s taken for so long, about how powerful she was, that Reginald couldn’t control her. 

He doesn’t mention the other timeline, how Allison and Diego and so many others died by her hand. There’s no need to. It would only hurt Vanya, only anger Luther. He’s never been one to repeat the past step for step. 

“You have a choice, Vanya, you can stay on the medicine and live life as you have been, or you can go without it, and we’ll do our best to help you.”

Allison is the first to agree to help and, though Luthor is hesitant, that serves as the final push for him to nod as well. 

Diego nods, “We haven’t always been in the best terms, but we can help you.”

“Good.” Five tells them. 

Then he jumps back to his old room and sets himself to work. The apocalypse has been averted yes, but his brother is still gone, misplaced in time. 

It’s easy enough to develop an equation that posits the most likely coordinates the briefcase would take an inexperienced time traveler to from this time and place, though the pounding of his siblings in his door does slow him down. He consults with Delores as he works, nodding as she reminds him that the briefcase was designed to carry two people, not one, and that would impact the time and distance traveled. 

When he finishes, a whole day and one (involuntary) cat nap later, he can’t help the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. He checks his math, once, twice, again and again. 

Vanya finds him holding Delores to his chest as he stares at the numbers he’s scrawled across the wall: 1968. 

“Five?”

“Vanya,” he answers, ripping his attention away from the wall. His voice Is gravely, and with a start he realizes he can’t recall the last time he had something to drink. 

“Are you okay? Nobody had seen you in a while so I came up to check.”

“Fine,” he stands, dusting off his uniform. “I need to leave for a while, business to attend to, but I’ll be back soon.”

He jumps into the alleyway behind the house and finally allows himself to tremble. His body is wracked with sobs as he shoves the palm of his hand into his mouth to muffle them. 

1968\. Klaus. The laugh of the man he’d killed. The laugh of his brother. 

It makes sense, the briefcases travel outside of time, not through it, so even if this timeline didn’t actually exist yet, Klaus could have appeared. Five could have killed him. The timeline would have been altered by his presence, but not enough for the Commission to look closely, not enough for them to realize who he was. They’d only see that there was a briefcase there and, though it's not uncommon for them to be found out of their proper times given the sheer amount of missions that had yet to take place but could in the future, send someone to retrieve it.

Retrieval team #34 had brought back a briefcase. 

He stands in the alleyway for a long time before he heads back to his room. There, he sets to work once more. 

His walls are slowly covered in scrawling black ink, but that’s the least of his concerns. Occasionally, food appears at his elbow, and he eats it, knowing that his siblings have brought it to him, but he can’t bring himself to stop. He needs to be exact this time, to arrive right before his past self can act. That’s the only confirmed time and location he has for Klaus, and he’ll be damned if he misses his moment. 

Occasionally, Five hears his siblings outside his door. They talk amongst themselves, concerned about his well being, but also alarmed by the state of the walls, the way his fingers clench around a dagger when they talk about removing him from the room. He hears the word PTSD and theories about the effects of time travel on the mind thrown about, and he wants to scream. They never knew just how real the apocalypse was in this timeline; he can't begrudge them that.

He hears Klaus’s name once, and that’s enough for him to stop and take notice of what they’re saying. Perhaps he’s wrong, perhaps he killed another Klaus and his brother has made it home without him. 

“Have you seen Klaus lately?” Diego asks, and Five perks up.

Luther replies, “No, but we have to be honest with ourselves, he’s probably off getting high. It’s a miracle he stayed as long as he did.”

The equation does not take that long to tweak when compared to the years it took him to format the original. Still, every second that goes by is another in which the Commission could realize what happened, another in which they could strike. He needs to get to Klaus soon, to bring him back and end the Commission once and for all. He adjusts for his new body and destination and finally, finally, the equation is ready.

He jumps while his siblings are testing Vanya’s powers, they’ve only just confirmed their relationship to sound, and he knows they’re distracted. The last thing he needs is for someone to try and stop him. The last thing he needs is for them to demand to come along, to have them see him kill his own brother. He won’t allow it.

He arrives behind Dave Katz at the same moment his other self pulls the trigger. He knows how he works, that his attention will already be focused on Klaus, that he’ll want to make the kill clean and efficient. It’ll work in his favor this time.

He puts a hand on Katz’s shoulder and jumps him just two inches to the left, shoving him down as they go. It’ll get the man far enough out of the way to survive, but he’ll still be close enough that when his younger-older self spares his work a cursory glance he won’t question anything. That done, he jumps to Klaus, wraps a hand around his ankle, and pulls his leg out from under him.

“Stay down,” Five hisses when he sees Dave twisting towards him. “Play dead.”

“Five?” Klaus whispers. He doesn't turn to look, for once in his life listening to a member of his family. “Is that you?”

“No,” Five snaps, “It’s your other teleporting brother, of course it’s me!”

“Teleporting? What the hell is happening?” Katz asks and Five can’t help but roll his eyes as he discreetly checks his watch. 

“All clear.” He announces, rising to his feet and brushing off his jacket. Klaus and Dave follow his example, both watching him curiously though for different reasons. 

“So,” Klaus says, “What brings you to Vietnam?”

“I figured I’d save your life again, that’s what,” Five growls eager to avoid talking about Klaus’ near death experience. “Now let’s go!”

“Go?” Katz asks, Five turns to him with a raised brow. 

“Go, yes. You can’t stay here; you were meant to die here, that man who just tried to kill you works for the Commission taking out aberrations in the timeline. Klaus definitely can’t stay, not when he doesn’t belong here, and if you stay you’ll create a paradox and they’ll just come back to kill you another time.”

“What are you talking about?” Katz cries, and Klaus reaches over to grab his hand. 

“I… May have left a few things out when I told you about my life.”

“There’s no time for this,” Five announces half way through Klaus’ abridged explanation about how his siblings also have powers and are from the future. 

He grabs them both, thinks of the proper calculation, and jumps. 

He can’t take the briefcase that Klaus has. Not without creating a paradox. He’s done the math over and over and the Commission has already sent the Retrieval Team, there’s no changing that. Instead he has to junk through time again, this time not as one person, but three. 

Luckily, it’s easier to go forward than it is to go back. 

The pain is immense, but it isn’t the worst he’s ever had. His skin burns and he has a vague worry about the pressure behind his eyes, so intense that he wonders if they’ll burst. Still, it’s nothing like when he returned to his family the first time. He doesn’t have to feel his body literally be torn apart molecule but molecule and become something new. 

He does however have to exert three times as much energy, and as he lands there’s a rushing in his ears. He can feel himself swaying, and knows what’s about to happen even as the blackness around the edges of his vision begins to creep inwards. 

His knees buckle, and for a moment he can feel hands touching him, stabilizing him. Then the weight of his actions hits him and sensation disappears. 

He wakes up in a bed he quickly recognizes as belonging to the Academy’s hospital room. He isn’t alone. In a chair to his left is Katz, sleeping and still in his army fatigues. Idly, Five wonders how much time has passed. A quick assessment of his state reveals stitches in his side: bullet wound. He must have shot himself in Vietnam. 

“Five!” Katz says suddenly, and when Five looks up the other man is awake and staring at him. “You’re okay!”

“Fine. Where’s Klaus?”

“He just stepped out to grab us some food. Look, he explained to me what you did, that you saved our lives. I wanted to say thank you.”

“Don’t.“

“Don’t be modest. You saved us, Klaus told me that we couldn't have fought off the Commission on our own.”

“Don’t thank me, Katz. Really. It’s my fault you two were even in that position.”

“Five-“

Five whorls around to look at the source of the new voice and as his eyes meet Klaus’ he can feel his stomach drop. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. Doesn’t want to explain to his brother what he did. 

He jumps. 

He doesn’t get far, only the empty hallway behind Klaus, but it gives him enough of a head start. He escapes the house, flagging down a taxi out front. 

“Where to?” The man wonders. 

“Just drive,” Five orders. “I’ll let you know when to stop.”

He has no particular destination in mind, but he really isn’t shocked to find himself at Ben’s grave. He'd known it would happen soon enough. His brother has been gone for seventeen years, even longer for Five, but now, now that he’s seen his other siblings face to face; now that he’s both killed and saved Klaus, now it feels different. He failed Ben. He failed Ben, and there is no way for him to fix it. The only reason Five had been able to save Klaus is that he knew exactly what happened. He’d seen it, caused it. He knows how Klaus died. 

He doesn’t know how long he stays at Ben’s grave. It doesn’t matter. All that really matters is that Ben won’t be there when he gets home. 

When Five makes his way back, he manages to avoid his family for a whole day. Occasionally they catch sight of him, but he always jumps away before anyone can say anything to him. It’s better like this he thinks, better that they can’t ask him what he’s done. 

Klaus catches him sleeping at a desk in the library and wraps a hand around his wrist before he can jump. It’s a stupid mistake on Five’s part, falling asleep in a public place, but not one he’ll repeat. 

“You brought Dave with us,” Klaus says. He seems unusually serious and his eyes are searching. “Thank you. I know that you didn’t do it for him. I know he only matters to you because he matters to me.”

He doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t want to be thanked for stopping something he did. 

“I’m glad you're back,” Five replies. 

He doesn’t tell Klaus how he did it. Klaus doesn’t ask. 

He’ll never know just how lucky he was.


End file.
